Explains how South Carolina has linked service learning to teacher education, strategic planning in schools, and educational accountability. Planners should establish a policy council, align service-learning initiatives with policy goals and programs, state academic standards, and teacher education programs; and create a network of trained…

Compares the service learning experience of college students to the traditional social science technique of participant observation. Suggests that service learning allows students to test theories through personal observation in a service setting and experience the logic and practice of social research. Uses examples from the Xavier University…

Describes an outdoor adventure and environmental program for young people in Cumbria (England) that aims to raise social and environmental awareness through ecological, artistic, and adventurous activities. Non-hierarchical, learner-centered residential and nonresidential projects empower young people to become interested in their local…

An adventure education program combines environmental education, character education, and service learning with ropes courses, orienteering, and rock climbing to offer Romanian youth opportunities for trust building and reconciliation in the wake of the economic, environmental, and moral devastation left by the Communist dictator. An ecotourism…

Service learning represents a relatively low-cost strategy for enhancing youngsters' educational experience. Research at Brandeis University suggests that payback to communities substantially outweighs moderate costs involved in integrating service learning into the curriculum. Lower overhead helps districtwide initiatives achieve lower ($27)…

Community-service programs that lack administrative or community support are destined to fail. The success of mandatory programs depends on careful preparations, stakeholder buy-in, academic merits, program quality, staff support, safeguards for students, accurate recordkeeping, and recognition of long-term educational benefits. (MLH)

Uses the example of service learning to examine connections between and definitions of public and private as they are deployed in writing, literacy studies, and the field of English. Argues that, done effectively, service learning fits well into an English Studies that is reconsidering its own boundaries and internal relationships. (RS)

As a pedagogy for citizenship, academic service learning offers students the opportunity to experience and reflect on how citizens organize to bring their communities and their country closer to democracy. The three-course Democracy Project at Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania) illustrates how this approach can be developed within a college…

Suggests that service learning, as an innovative practice in college teaching, challenges faculty in complex ways and proposes a matrix to help conceptualize different focus areas in service learning (student, expertise, sponsor, or common good) and instructional concerns (values development, pedagogical strategies, academic culture, and community…

States that service learning educates students to volunteer their expertise for the benefit of society. Suggests that teachers of business and technical writing can apply this pedagogy by assigning students to write for nonprofits. Describes service learning's origins; proposes a rationale for it; explains sequential projects and teaching methods…

Students in an undergraduate sport management writing course experienced a service learning component via outreach with local sport organizations. Class instructors supported students and evaluated student logs, class presentations, student memorandums, product review, and interviews with agency personnel and students. Results indicated that…

Describes the author's psychology class, in which she required students to do service work with a resident in a nursing home. Reports that students met for a minimum of eight hours with the resident and wrote both a history of the person and a reflection on the project. States that half of the students decided to continue volunteering after the…

In a West Texas community that is 70% Hispanic, school-based community services build solidarity and contribute to well-being. The school provides social services, a community clinic, and service learning opportunities for students. This model is successful because it is self-initiated and self-organized. (Contains 43 references.) (SK)

Twelve theme articles discuss service learning and reflection in agricultural education, student perspective on service learning, Future Farmers of America, character education, intergenerational projects, agricultural communications, and service learning as advocacy. (SK)

Describes a hypothetical elementary school that is centered on social studies and social action, focusing on three practices at such a school: democratic education, education for social justice, and community service learning. Challenges to social action in U.S. schools include teachers' time limitations, curriculum standards, and emphasis on…